Is This The First Ever Spider-Man Fan Film?

You might know Donald F. Glut from his best-selling novelization of The Empire Strikes Back. Or maybe you know him from his dozen or so episodes of the Transformers cartoon. Or maybe you know him from The Erotic Rites of Countess Dracula (we're not judging you). You probably should know him from his groundbreaking early fanfilms, though.

Before the internet and before digital cameras fanfilms were rare and took a lot of work. And were almost always strange, and usually kind of charming. Case in point: Don Glut's Spider-Man fanfilm, made in 1969, well before Glut would become a professional (and probably around the time he was in film school with a guy named George Lucas). This film has a very homemade Ditko-esque Spider-Man costume, some stolen music and special effects that mostly consist of a Mego-looking Spidey being animated via stop motion. It's absolutely adorable.

It's also interesting to see how fans in 1969 processed this stuff - the film feels very influenced by the wacky, fun serials of the 30s and 40s and doesn't feel like an effort to grit the character up.

Glut made other fan films, including ones about The Spirit, Captain America, Batman and even Spy Smasher. I'd love to see those!

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